My office at the University of Maryland is under the flight path for airplanes going to and from the College Park airport, usually single-or twin-engine general-aviation aircraft. Each one, as it flies overhead, typifies the laws of aerodynamics in action; each is a reminder of how humans have harnessed these laws and put them to practical use in the design of flying machines. However, it is easy to forget that only a little more than a century ago these laws were so little known or so misunderstood that no one had been able to build a machine that would fly.

How did we finally come to understand the basic laws of aerodynamics, at least to an extent sufficient to design successful flying machines? The story of that understanding reaches all the way back to ancient Greek science and the theories and studies of Aristotle and Archimedes. It has been an exciting quest, and the purpose of this book is to tell that story, to present the history of aerodynamics.

The unique aspects of this book are as follows:

1. (1) It is the first to be devoted exclusively to the history of aerodynamics.

2. (2) It provides an interpretation of the history of aerodynamics as seen through the eyes of a practicing aerodynamicist, and thus it is complementary to previous studies carried out by professional historians of science and technology.

3. (3) It presents new research findings, previously unpublished, that have answered some long-standing questions posed by historians of aeronautics. Previously unknown aspects of work in applied aerodynamics by such pioneers as George Cayley, Horatio Phillips, Otto Lilienthal, Samuel Langley, and the Wright brothers have come to light as a result of the research in preparation for this book. Also, several technical discrepancies and inconsistencies associated with the historical data have been clarified simply by carrying out proper aerodynamic analyses, combined with some new thinking. In this sense, parts of the book make new contributions to scholarship in the history of technology.